Many feel Sen. Manchin has been an agent for fossil fuels

From an Article by John Bachtell, People’s World, August 3, 2022

Senate Democrats appear on the verge of passing historic legislation to accelerate a national transition to clean energy, reduce energy costs, create tens of thousands of union jobs, and address environmental injustice.

The surprise agreement, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), was brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin, W.Va, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y. All 50 Democratic senators, including Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema, must support the IRA to pass. Every Republican, fossil fuel driller, and big corporation fiercely oppose it.

Environmental, labor, and social justice organizations, climate scientists, policymakers, and federal, state, and local Democratic lawmakers hailed the deal. They called for swift passage despite shortcomings and concessions to the fossil fuel industry.

The turn of events happened after Manchin torpedoed the Build Back Better (BBB) legislation while a record heat wave baked much of the planet, sparking wildfires and causing flash flooding in Kentucky. Most assumed climate legislation was dead for the remainder of this Congress.

The result was a bitter backlash directed against Manchin, protests, a sit-in by Congressional staffers, and calls for Biden to declare a National Emergency on climate. Guarantees for fossil leasing, extending financing of the Black Lung Trust Fund, separately expediting the permitting process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline across West Virginia, and convincing Manchin the bill would reduce inflation may have convinced him to agree.

The IRA marks the biggest investment in clean energy in U.S. history and is the result of decades of movement-building and battles to pass transformative climate legislation against entrenched opposition. “We’re going to look back in 50 years and say this was the beginning of a great transition,” said Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.

“Rhodium Group modeling shows the IRA can absolutely cut carbon pollution by 40% by 2030. With additional executive and state action, we could be back on track to hit President Biden’s critical goal of a 50% cut this decade,” said Dr. Leah Stokes, leader of Evergreen Action and a climate policy maker involved in crafting the BBB legislation.

According to climate scientists, the world must reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 to avoid surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius and triggering far more catastrophic changes.

The bill strips from the BBB some provisions like the child tax credit. However, it retains most of the original bill’s critical programs, although at lower funding levels. They include $369 billion in funding and tax credits to accelerate the transition toward clean energy technologies, reduction in methane gas emissions, and investments in agriculture, rural economic development, and restoration.

It establishes environmental, labor, and equity standards in public investment. It directs about $60 billion in funding to historically discriminated and vulnerable communities suffering the worst climate change consequences.

One such mechanism is a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to make community renewable energy investments. The climate bank would lend $28 billion for “low-interest loans across the country. A small town in Ohio could say we want to do over our public housing stock completely. Okay, come to the climate bank. Or a community that wants to install solar panels on their town dump. Okay, we’ll help finance it,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

The bill contains tax credits for consumers to purchase new and used electric vehicles and partially funds the conversion of the USPS truck fleet to electric vehicles. It provides corporate tax credits to produce solar and offshore wind farms, geothermal infrastructure, batteries, and green technology production facilities.

The bill makes it easier for working-class households to winterize their homes and buy electric heat pumps and induction stoves. Studies show the more renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other products manufactured, the cheaper they become, which is not the case with fossil fuel energy production.

The bill also allocates $64 billion to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2024 and allows Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices with Big Pharma.

Lawmakers maintain transitioning to renewables would also reduce energy costs and address Manchin’s stated concern about inflation. “Fossil fuels have driven 41% of inflation,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “So, when we talk about investments in clean energy, that is one of the biggest components of price increases consumers face. Households will save on average about $1,800 a year in energy bills.”

Lawmakers drafted the bill to bypass Republican obstruction through the budget reconciliation process. It needs every Democrat on board, and with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote, only 51 votes are required rather than the 60 votes under the Senate filibuster rule.

Sinema has been silent on her support and is under enormous pressure from giant corporations to kill the bill. Her concerns seem to revolve around taxes on the wealthy and corporations, which raise $739 billion in revenue to cover the bill’s costs. The IRA does not raise taxes on workers making less than $400,000 annually.

Sinema has repeatedly expressed opposition to the “carried interest charge,” a tax on profits hedge fund managers make insisted on by Manchin. The far more significant issue is corporate opposition to a minimum 15% tax on corporate profits over $1 billion. Sinema has previously supported the tax, but the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, which shower her with contributions, wants it defeated.

“If Sinema, a one-time Green Party activist, derailed the most significant federal climate bill ever while Arizona faces mounting impacts of climate change, it would be an incredible repudiation of everything she’s stood for her entire life,” tweeted Atlantic columnist Ronald Brownstein. Markey also indicated senators would work with Sinema and get the deal done one way or another.

The IRA comes with difficult compromises to gain the vote of Manchin. The bill mandates onshore and offshore lease sales, but they are to be more restricted and carry higher royalty costs. Ultimately, the plummeting production costs of renewables will make oil drilling unnecessary.

Besides, the total impact of the new leasing on the climate could be minimal, according to one study. “For every ton of emissions increases generated by [the bill’s] oil and gas provisions, at least 24 tons of emissions are avoided by the other provisions,” concludes Energy Innovation.

NOTE ~ See the original Article (here) for four more paragraphs of political commentary.

Virginia environmental groups call for a declaration of climate emergency & protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Richmond (8/2/22)

From an Article by Sarah Vogelsong, Virginia Mercury, August 2, 2022

A deal between Democratic congressional leadership and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III over sweeping federal climate legislation could force the completion of Mountain Valley Pipeline, according to a one-page summary of the agreement’s provisions obtained by The Washington Post.

The final item on the summary reads: “Complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

Since the surprise 11th-hour deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Manchin resurrected President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda last week, Virginia environmental groups and many landowners in the state’s southwestern region have been waiting uneasily to learn the agreement’s terms.

Numerous national news outlets reported that Manchin’s support was linked to promises by Democratic leaders to pass separate legislation smoothing the fraught federal permitting process for fossil fuel pipelines such as Mountain Valley, a 303-mile-long conduit planned to carry gas from the Marcellus shale fields of West Virginia into Virginia.

The summary released Monday, which a Manchin spokesperson confirmed Tuesday reflects the provisions the senator is seeking, offers the clearest look yet at what those promises are. For Mountain Valley, the asks are twofold: First, require federal agencies “to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation” of the pipeline. Second, transfer jurisdiction over legal cases concerning the pipeline from the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to the D.C. Circuit.

Lee Williams, director of Green New Deal Virginia and advocacy chair of the Richmond-area Falls of the James chapter of the Sierra Club, reacted to the proposal with dismay. Environmental groups “want everything” that’s in the federal climate bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, she said. “We’ve been asking for it for the last decade. Unfortunately, to get Sen. Manchin to vote for it, they literally threw Southwest Virginia under the bus.”

Exactly what Democratic leaders promised Manchin, however, remains unclear. Despite the one-page summary that has been released, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) said during a Tuesday teleconference that “there is no connection between voting on the Inflation Reduction Act and then having to vote for the Mountain Valley Pipeline or a permitting bill.” Also, “The deal was (that) in exchange for getting an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act, we will have the opportunity to debate and vote on permitting improvements, but no one’s made commitments about how they’re going to vote, and I’m certainly not going to make a commitment until I see what that bill is,” he said.

Valeria Rivadeneira, a spokesperson for Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D), said the senator would review the proposal “once the full legislative text is made available.”

Originally expected to be completed by 2018, Mountain Valley Pipeline has been hampered by staunch opposition in both Virginia and West Virginia, hundreds of environmental violations and a string of successful legal challenges in the 4th Circuit that have repeatedly stripped the project of necessary federal permits. Construction has proved especially halting along a Southwest Virginia corridor that crosses through part of the Jefferson National Forest in Giles, Craig and Montgomery counties.

This summer, with few immediate breakthroughs evident, the developers sought permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has authority over pipeline construction, to extend its deadline another four years.

With delays and costs mounting, investors have become increasingly skeptical that the pipeline will ever be completed. In a February filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, project investor NextEra Energy wrote that “continued legal and regulatory challenges have resulted in a very low probability of pipeline completion.”

The deal with Manchin could change all that. Amid news of the agreement, shares in lead pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream soared to a three-month high Tuesday.

“MVP is being recognized as a critical infrastructure project that is essential for our nation’s energy security, energy reliability, and ability to effectively transition to a lower-carbon future,” Equitrans spokesperson Natalie Cox wrote in an email.

More than 300,000 miles of natural gas pipelines exist in the U.S., she noted in a lengthy statement. “None of these existing pipelines have undergone the extensive level of environmental research, analysis and review that has been performed on the MVP project.”

The reforms to the federal energy permitting process outlined in the summary document, which would include timelines for permitting reviews and a statute of limitations for court challenges, leave Virginia environmental groups in a tight spot. Organizations that last week hailed the sudden reappearance of federal climate action are now left scrambling to decide whether they can swallow a deal that includes Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project many have spent years opposing.

“We’re not going to sit by and roll over and let Southwest Virginia be a sacrifice zone,” Williams told the Mercury Tuesday after leading a demonstration in downtown Richmond calling on Biden to declare a climate emergency, one of many organized by activists nationwide. “But we don’t want to blow up the deal. It’s a fine line.”

We don’t want to blow up the deal. It’s a fine line. Some groups have already come out in opposition.

“We firmly oppose any approach by Congress that sacrifices frontline communities as part of a political bargain,” said Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator for environmental and economic development nonprofit Appalachian Voices, in a statement. The group’s North Carolina field coordinator, Ridge Graham, called any legislation requiring completion of Mountain Valley “unacceptable.”

But others were reluctant to speak on the record, indicating they are still sorting out their stances in a rapidly evolving situation.

Regardless of the Manchin deal, Kaine on Tuesday emphasized the need for reforms to federal pipeline permitting, saying he thought FERC’s initial review of Mountain Valley had been “shoddy.” Also, “I view many of the controversies that are connected with the Mountain Valley Pipeline as having been sort of stoked by an inadequate federal permitting process through FERC,” he said, citing “in particular the unwillingness or inability of FERC to get information out to the public and appropriately take public comment and then take that into account in terms of deciding (a) whether a pipeline was necessary and (b) whether the proposed route was the right route.”

A spokesperson later said that Sen. Kaine believes improving permitting “is preferable to having members of Congress decide outcomes on individual energy infrastructure projects.”

Both Kaine and Warner, as well as Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, have previously proposed federal legislation to change the federal review process for proposals and clarify when eminent domain can be exercised. Those bills were crafted in response to not only Mountain Valley Pipeline but the Dominion Energy and Duke Energy-backed Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have stretched from West Virginia to North Carolina via Virginia but was canceled in July 2020.

Senator Joe Manchin gets more messages, does he listen?

Press Release from Gary Zuckett, WV Citizen Action & Morgan King, WV Rivers Coalition, July 15, 2022

Charleston, W.Va.– Senator Joe Manchin announced that he wants to delay a plan to use the money that wealthy corporations owe to pay for desperately needed projects to help our climate and workers.

In response, the West Virginia Climate Alliance submitted a letter to Senator Manchin. When the letter was sent, the Alliance requested an in person meeting with Senator Manchin, noting they had not been able to meet with the Senator in over a year to discuss grassroots concerns about climate impacts in the state.

“Every day that we delay taking action on the climate crisis makes our weather more extreme and the implementation of solutions even more challenging. The country, and indeed the planet, need Senator Manchin to negotiate in good faith on a bill addressing the climate crisis with the goal of keeping global warming below an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Passage of this bill should not be contingent on a one month inflation report,” said Perry Bryant, founder of the WV Climate Alliance.

Manchin’s move comes just one day after more than 100 homes, roads and bridges in McDowell County, WV were damaged from climate-related flooding. The Climate Alliance representing dozens of regional groups underscores the urgency of the climate crisis; and, a rally at Manchin office took place on Monday, July 18th.

The Rev. Jeffrey Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, stated, “Climate change is a crisis of today. It’s flooding in West Virginia and Virginia; fires in the West; and drought here and abroad. There is an enormous cost that we already bear due to our lack of action and it’s a cost being borne by our neighbors. Passing climate change legislation is as local as it gets. This legislation is not only for our neighbors, but for all of those people who we care deeply about. For their sake, we cannot afford to delay any longer.”

Karan May, Sr. Campaign Representative, Sierra Club: “Folks in Appalachia are among the hardest hit by the effects of climate change. West Virginians are paying the price for poor health outcomes from pollution; here and in Kentucky and Southwest Virginia, year after year, we are paying the enormous price for catastrophic flooding. Senator Manchin has the opportunity to facilitate meaningful change for his constituents and, yet, is choosing to walk away from legislation that could help alleviate this suffering. We will continue to fight for policy that will address the climate crisis, while also putting money back into our communities with investments in clean energy and sustainable economic development.”

Linda Frame, President of the WV Environmental Council, said “After a year of good-faith discussions with Senator Manchin and his team it’s hard not to be deflated by this latest delay. We continue to urge Senator Manchin to seize this opportunity to do the right thing for our state, our country, and our planet because the alternative is unthinkable.”

Eve Marcum-Atkinson, Comms. Coord. For WV Citizen Action Group said that “The overall cost of building climate change resilient infrastructure, as well as the transition to a clean energy economy, can be paid for now. Tax minimums for millionaires and the elimination of zero-tax-paying loopholes for corporations are how we do this. They have financially benefited from our people’s labor, our nation’s infrastructure, and our economy. We need them to pay their fair share to help us all, as we continue to struggle with the effects of rising prices, increases in dangerous storms, record temperatures, drought, flooding, and more. We need Senator Manchin to fully embrace this now, as climate change is a now issue, a global issue. It’s not going away.”

Dana Kuhnline, Campaign Manager for ReImagine Appalachia said that “No matter our race or income, we want to live and raise our families in healthy and safe communities. Done right, the reconciliation bill is an opportunity to create bridges across our differences rather than making them deeper. Appalachia has been hit hard both by climate change impacts and global energy shifts – with Black and brown communities seeing disproportionate impacts. At the same time, we have an incredible opportunity to mitigate the climate crisis by investing in the communities hardest hit. Appalachian communities need action from Congress, this delay on key climate provisions not only hurts communities struggling with flooding and job loss due to the downturn of the coal industry, it pushes back other urgent actions we need to see from Congress.”

Morgan King, climate campaign coordinator of WV Rivers Coalition said that “Promoting good energy legislation is part of Senator Manchin’s role as chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. We call on him to not further delay action on the issues he proclaims to champion. It’s past time to listen to the science that shows a transformational clean energy transition will mitigate climate change while saving lives and creating new jobs.”

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FOUNDED in 2020, the WEST VIRGINIA CLIMATE ALLIANCE is a broad-based coalition of almost 20 environmental organizations, faith-based, civil rights and civic organizations, and other groups with a focus on climate change. Members of the Alliance work together to provide science-based education on climate change to West Virginia citizens and policymakers.

FOR MORE ON THE CLIMATE ALLIANCE, VISIT: WVClimateAlliance.org